


Do Flight Simmers Dream of Inflight Emergencies?

by Hyvamethyst



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pilots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyvamethyst/pseuds/Hyvamethyst
Summary: When Hiccup said he wanted to learn to fly, he didn’t really mean going straight from being a passenger in a transpacific airliner to its sole pilot. But with the help of the enigmatic woman’s voice over the radio, maybe things would turn out okay.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	1. Mayday, I guess?

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome aboard! Please keep your disbelief stowed in the overhead bins for the duration of the flight, and thank you for choosing to travel with us :)

“How could I have known that she’s the boss’s daughter?”

It wasn’t really the substance of what his cousin said, but just how astonishingly indignant he sounded that struck a nerve and dragged Hiccup out of his commitment to feigning deafness for the entire flight.

Twisting around as much as he could in the limited space between his seat and the tray table, Hiccup glared.

“Gee, I don’t know _Snotlout_ , why else would she have been sitting next to him and his wife during the dinner?”

His cousin’s name was actually Scott. When they were toddlers, Hiccup had made fun of his cousin’s frequently runny nose in response to the teasing about his hiccupping; in the end, both names had stuck. The “-lout” had been added after Hiccup witnessed firsthand his cousin’s attempts at picking up girls in a bar.

“And more importantly, a business dinner is absolutely not the right time or place for you to start pestering women!”

Despite saying it in a whisper-shout, Hiccup could feel the curious eyes of the passenger sitting to his other side.

He leaned back into his seat and fixated on the seatback display, jabbing a finger aimlessly at the unhelpfully unresponsive touchscreen and hoping to find something that would help block out Snotlout’s impassioned defense of his flirting prowess.

Maybe the travelers around them couldn’t understand English; it wouldn’t be too unusual on an international flight. Maybe they only saw two Americans. Two rowdy, loudmouthed Americans.

To think that the trip had started out so well.

Hiccup’s father had sent him and Snotlout to Beijing to finalize a business deal. It was largely ceremonial, something about building personal ties and showing how much the partnership meant to them, at least according to the overpaid “cross-cultural consultant” his father hired.

Their hosts had been amused by Snotlout’s jock-like Americanness—Hiccup had silently thanked all the gods he could name for that one—and approved of Hiccup’s appreciation for their culture. The cuisine they’d been treated to, not to mention the copious, liver-wrecking amounts of _baijiu_ , and the sights they’d toured, it could have been a vacation.

And then on the last day, Snotlout had made a pass at the company chairman’s daughter, and earned himself a slap in the face in front of the entire banquet. The following morning the deal was put “on hold,” and their hosts brushed off Hiccup’s repeated attempts to meet and make amends.

Hiccup couldn’t quite recall the last time he dreaded something as much as the ensuing phone call to his father. Dread, apprehension, and anxiety were once familiar emotions when it came to interacting with Stoick.

Granted, it had been many years since he was a kid in school, sitting stiffly in a hard plastic chair outside the principal’s office as the effects of his latest experimental contraption were described in what Hiccup still maintained was exaggerated detail to his father.

The butterflies in his stomach from then generally had a way of coming back though.

Somehow it would be his fault. Snotlout would get told off, but it was always Hiccup’s fault. How he should’ve reigned in his cousin, or had the clairvoyance to see what was coming and intercepted, or preemptively chatted up the lady himself. Or something.

Surprisingly, Stoick had kept quiet while Hiccup’s explanation of the previous day’s events soon became rambling. A curt demand that they be on the next flight home was all they got before he promptly hung up.

Hiccup could only assume shouting at him over the phone wasn’t satisfying enough for the man, and he wanted to do it in person while looming over them. Stoick was very good at looming.

As it turned out, the earliest flight to the US was the next day’s Air China flight from Beijing to San Francisco. Few tickets were left at such short notice, which was why Hiccup was currently squished in the middle seat between his broad-shouldered cousin on his left, and a stranger on his right.

“Keep talking and I’ll tell Dad about everything you did during the trip,” Hiccup finally breathed quietly when it became apparent that Snotlout wasn’t going to stop grousing of his own volition. His cousin harrumphed and grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “just jealous,” but settled down anyway.

Hiccup downed the remaining water in his plastic cup, handed it to a passing flight attendant with a quiet thank you, and folded up the tray table that simultaneously took up way too much room and yet was never big enough.

Sliding a bit down his seat so he could lean against the headrest, he closed his eyes and made himself passably comfortable. Unable to look out the window or stand in the aisle to stretch, the one thing left to do was to try and sleep through the journey.

Taking over the family business had never been the plan.

Well, it had long been his father’s plan, not his.

Hiccup had gone away to college to study engineering, and after a friend took him on a flight in dinky little bright yellow Piper Cub, he switched gears; being a pilot was suddenly all he wanted.

Even though the thing could barely be called a plane by modern standards—merely steel tubes, fabric, and an engine with less power than his old Toyota bolted to the front—it could go practically anywhere, take him anywhere.

Up in the sky, he felt… Free.

But with the downturn in the industry and his father’s heart attack, Hiccup could no longer stay away.

It hadn’t been as bad as he feared though. The income meant he could start putting together a home flight simulator rig, and Stoick, in a rare moment of recognizing the burdens he had placed on his son, had arranged flying lessons for him on weekends too.

The plane rocked slightly as it hit a patch of light turbulence, and Hiccup let the mild swaying sensation lull him to sleep.

When Hiccup blearily became aware of his surroundings once again, he let out a soft moan and wished he could sink back into a slumber.

Throat dry, saliva thick and sticky in his mouth, he could feel a growing throb in his skull. Not to mention a faint twisting in his stomach. He struggled to remember; had he asked for any wine or beer during the flight?

Then the smell hit him.

It was an overwhelming, pungent odor, like wet gym socks, except ten times worse. The air was heavy with the smell, so thick that Hiccup could almost taste it, crawling into the back of his throat. He coughed, and nearly choked on the next breath.

“Snotlout! Did you take off your shoes again?” he hissed, his still-sluggish mind jumping to conclusions as he fought the urge to gag and tried his best to only breathe through his mouth at the same time.

But Snotlout had both his hands clamped to his face, his voice muffled when he answered, “It’s not me, I swear!”

Hiccup looked around was met with a similar sight across the cabin.

Many passengers were holding their clothes, blankets, or travel pillows to their faces, or shoving their noses into the crook of their arms in an effort to filter out the acrid smell. The noise of coughing was everywhere, and Hiccup thought he might have heard someone further behind retching. 

A handful of people braved the risk of drawing deeper breaths to yell through their improvised masks. Many more were repeatedly punching at the flight attendant call button, the usually unobtrusive chime now adding to the cacophony.

Over the din, flight attendants standing in the aisles were trying to make themselves heard with their hands cupped around their mouths.

Several rows ahead in the center seats, a woman had stood up from her spot and was scrabbling at the paneling above, digging her fingers into the gaps between the dull white plastic. The young man in the neighboring seat had his arms around her shoulders trying to restrain her.

Someone shouted and a flight attendant rushed over to help as well. Hiccup belatedly realized the woman was probably attempting to get at the oxygen masks.

This was insane. This was chaos, and the cabin crew were struggling to keep people from panicking.

The normally unobtrusive mood lighting that bathed the cabin in a soothing orange glow instead seemed too close to emergency red. Hiccup could feel his heart thumping, its pace picking up, and a growing tightness in his stomach as he grasped that he too was stuck in a giant metal tube in this. Whatever this was.

There was no way out, and nothing out there. Only freezing cold and a several-mile drop.

He pushed passed Snotlout to look out the window, and then at the moving map on the seatback screen. They were near Seattle, continuing to fly straight and level at 39,000 feet in the same direction. Surely this was something worth diverting for?

Amid the clamor, the ding of the public address system caught his attention. Strangely, the voice began straight away in English, rather than Chinese first as usual.

“—ssengers… on board…” Hiccup strained his ears to hear over the commotion. 

“Any pilots on board, please make themselves known to a flight attendant.”

Wait, did he hear that right?

He looked at Snotlout, who mirrored his expression, gawking. No, he couldn’t have. The announcement repeated itself one more time, and there was no mistaking it.

Pilots, they were asking for pilots.

Snotlout grabbed his arm and shook him. “Hiccup! You’re a pilot, aren’t you? Didn’t you have, like, a test right before we left?”

Hiccup nodded dumbly, uncomprehending. He had indeed gotten his multi-engine rating a few weeks ago. 

Finally, his thought process caught up.

“What? No!” he sputtered back, prying his cousin’s hand off him. “They mean off-duty airline pilots, not amateurs like me!”

And more importantly, why did they need pilots? Maybe the flight crew needed a hand; some help with communications, a language difficulty perhaps. That would explain why it needed to be someone with experience, and the English announcement.

A flight attendant passed their row and the man sitting to Hiccup’s right grabbed her by the forearm. They started arguing, but he couldn’t understand the language.

On his other side Snotlout jumped up, catching the attention of the agitated flight attendant, who gestured downwards with her free arm.

“Sir, please stay seated and keep your seatbelt fastened, the situation is under control!”

“He’s a pilot! My cousin knows how to fly!” Snotlout hollered, pointing in his direction. The flight attendant stopped moving and looked down at him expectantly.

Hiccup returned their gazes, glancing between them, unsure of what to say.

Goddammit. Damn it all.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. Clearing his throat, he tried again, “I’m—I’m a pilot.”

The next moment, the flight attendant had yanked herself free from the other passenger’s clasp and practically dragged Hiccup out into the aisle. He stumbled but she paid him no mind and led him forward in the direction of the cockpit, weaving and pushing through others in the narrow space.

The awful odor faded as they moved closer to the nose of the plane. By the time they were striding past the galley between business and first class, the smell was tolerable and getting weaker. It was a lot quieter too, with far fewer seats in the space.

Another flight attendant stood in the front galley speaking into the interphone. Her face was set in a grim expression, but nevertheless composed. Hiccup noticed she wore a dark purple uniform, unlike the vermillion red on the others.

His guide exchanged a few words in Chinese with her, and she looked over at him. “You are a professional pilot?”

“Ah no, no I’m a hobbyist,” he said quickly, scratching at the back of his neck. “I fly small propeller planes, general aviation.” 

She merely nodded, gestured for him to wait and went back to the interphone. Hiccup stood there, shifting his weight between legs.

He took a glance over his shoulder to see how the other crew were faring in the cabin—it sounded like things were calming down—and immediately froze.

In the closest row of first class were three men, slumped against the seats, their heads down or lolling to the side. 

Each had a portable oxygen mask on, and were wearing white shirts with black and gold shoulder badges. Two flight attendants were keeping a close eye on them.

Slowly, Hiccup turned around and took a few halting steps toward them.

Closer up, he could clearly make out the bars on their epaulets. Four golden stripes on one, three on the other two. A captain, and two first officers.

 _The_ captain and first officers.

A hand touched his arm and Hiccup started, whirling around and staggering backwards. It was the flight attendant in purple.

“I’m the chief purser for this flight,” she told him. “It appears you are the only pilot on board. The cabin crew will continue asking around. Please follow me.”

The woman turned on her heel and strode in the direction of the flight deck, but Hiccup stood rooted to the spot.

Eventually, he found his voice again, “Wait, wait! What’s going on, what happened here?”

“We don’t know. They called us, but there was no reply when we answered. When we opened the door we found them asleep. They are alive, but they won’t wake up.”

It was like a plot from some crappy TV action movie, except it was actually happening. To him.

A lump lodged in Hiccup’s throat, the nausea he’d been experiencing for the past several minutes flaring, and he pushed past the flight attendant into the lavatory, slamming the door shut behind him.

Doubled over before the toilet, he retched but nothing came out. Another dry heave wracked through him and he kneeled down, his stomach twisting painfully.

Waiting until he was reasonably confident he wasn’t actually going to vomit, Hiccup moved to stand up. The world spun, and he grabbed the sink edge to steady himself. It took another moment to be sure it was all in his head, and not the plane rolling.

He ran the tap, splashing himself with water and cursed under his breath when the water automatically stopped after a couple of seconds.

Bracing himself against the countertop, Hiccup stared at himself in the mirror.

The person that stared back looked exactly the same as the one this morning in the hotel. There was nothing different, nothing about him had changed, no sign that he was all of a sudden capable of magnificent feats.

He was still just Hiccup.

It’s as if you asked a hatchback driver to drive a big rig. No, scratch that, it’s actually way worse. It’s like telling a yacht-owner to captain the _Titanic_ through the ice fields. In a storm. Sure, the basic principles were the same, but that was beside the point.

Yet in the end, it didn’t matter, did it?

Right now, he was the only one who remotely stood a chance of getting the plane onto the ground. Without turning them all into a giant fireball in the process, that is.

If he could make a difference, he owed it to himself to at least try.

He had to. For his own sake, for his cousin, and for the several hundred passengers and crew on board.

A few more splashes of water on his face later and Hiccup stepped back out into the galley. He gave the chief purser a tiny nod, not quite trusting his voice yet.

She wasted no time, moving to enter a code on a keypad mounted to the bulkhead. Several beeps later he heard a lock click and she pushed the cockpit door open, holding it ajar for him.

Hiccup moved forward, stopping at the threshold. He could faintly hear a voice coming from inside, crackling and repeating, and he realized it was the radio.

_“Air China Nine Eighty-Five, Seattle Center, how do you read?”_

The flight deck looked a lot like the flight simulators he played around with. An overhead panel with more knobs and switches itself than in the entire plane that he normally flew, five big color displays taking up most of the instrument panel, and the throttle levers and yet more buttons on the center pedestal.

The difference was the view outside.

Directly ahead out the windows were clear blue skies, the color gently darkening from ground to the heavens. In the far distance, thin wispy strands of cirrus clouds blanketed the horizon. 

There really wasn’t anybody else here. He was really going to do this alone. Yeah. He could do this.

_“Air China Nine Eighty-Five, do you copy?”_

Or not. The first snag came as soon as Hiccup entered and sat down in the left seat: he had no idea how to move it into the flying position. 

Fortunately the chief purser came to his rescue, pressing a button at the seat’s base and it slid forward. He gave her an embarrassed smile and buckled in, pulling on the shoulder straps too for good measure. The purser did the same in the first officer’s chair.

_“Air China Nine Eighty-Five, Seattle Center.”_

Looking around, Hiccup took in all the dials and displays. He knew that most things on the right half was a duplicate of what he had in front of him, and he likely didn’t need to touch anything on the overhead panel.

At the top of the instrument panel on the glare shield were the autopilot controls, and he had his attitude, navigation, and engine indicators on the displays. So far so good.

The control column was comfortingly familiar, a simple “W”-shaped yoke much like on the Piper he earned his license in, and his feet found the rudder pedals where he expected.

_“Air China Niner Eight Five, Seattle Center on Guard. If you can hear, squawk IDENT.”_

Hiccup’s first thought was the quick reference handbook might contain instructions for this sort of emergency too. Digging through the document pockets, he was relieved to find a spiral-bound book labelled “QRH,” though the feeling rapidly evaporated when he flipped through the pages. Of course it was in Chinese.

“Do you think you could translate this?” Hiccup asked the chief purser hopefully, and only got a helpless shake of the head in reply.

_“Air China Niner Eight Five, Seattle on Guard. Squawk IDENT on your transponder if you read.”_

The radio. He should probably answer that. Grabbing the headset off its hook, he put it on and reached for the control wheel.

Hiccup’s hands hovered over the handles for a few seconds before deliberately closing around the cool, smooth plastic.

This was it, he was officially in control now.

On most of the planes he'd flown, the radio’s push-to-talk button was a small knob on top of the yoke within thumb’s reach. There was one here too, and he pressed it.

Right away a wailing siren blasted in the cockpit, the master warning lights on the glare shield lit up, and an “AUTOPILOT DISC” message flashed on the center display panel.

“Shit!” He hastily pressed the autopilot engage switch, and things calmed down again.

_“Air China Nine Eighty-Five, Seattle.”_

Not that one then. Hiccup felt around the yoke, and found another button under his left index finger. Yeah, that was another common place to put it.

He pressed down and when no alarm blared at him, breathed deeply and tried his best to not stammer, “Seattle Center, Air China Nine Eight Five.”

The reply was instantaneous, words coming quickly, almost aggressively from the cockpit speakers, _“Air China Nine Eighty-Five, say your intentions.”_

Well, at least he got the radio correct on the second try. That was a decent enough start, right?

Finger resting against the mic key, Hiccup hesitated.

What was he even supposed to say, hey the pilots are all incapacitated, can you help me land this thing? He was willing to bet nobody had an emergency protocol for this situation.

“Seattle Center, Air China Nine Eight Five, um… We have a problem up here. The, uh, the pilots are unconscious.”

Silence. The background hum of the engines was the only sound in the cockpit.

Hiccup swallowed thickly and pressed on, “I’m just a passenger. So, Mayday, I guess?”


	2. Redhawks Are Go

Whenever people found out Astrid was a fighter pilot, they always thought it incredible.

The young kids among her extended family were the most enthusiastic, the boys in particular looking up at her all bug-eyed, mouths agape and telling her she was “super awesome.” Astrid was sure at least one bragged to his schoolmates that he had a cool aunt who flew fighter jets.

And it was incredible, and awesome, and all those other fancy words that people came up with.

Strapped in the cockpit, she loved the rush of dogfighting during training, the feeling of being pushed into the seat as she made sharp, high-g turns, and the virtually unobstructed view of the deep blue sky when she soared up into the stratosphere.

Astrid wasn’t active duty Air Force; the airman’s lifestyle didn’t suit her. Instead, she served with the Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Fighter Wing—the Redhawks—and flew airliners for her day job.

The downside was there weren’t actually too many chances to go up.

Case in point, even being on alert duty could be really, really boring.

No doubt the Aerospace Control Alert mission was important; fully armed fighters and their crews on standby 24/7, ready to launch at a moment’s notice in case of a threat to the country.

But potential threats were rare. When they did get called up, it was mostly lone pilots that accidentally strayed into restricted airspace. Someone on base claimed they’d once been sent to chase an actual UFO, though Astrid didn’t believe that for a minute. Regardless, their sector hadn’t seen any action for several months.

It was a nice, clear morning, and she was nearing the end of an alert shift, drumming her fingers against the countertop as she heated up a microwave meal for breakfast. The early morning sun was pouring in through the windows and cast long shadows in their ready room.

“You know, for a part-timer you sure are around here a lot.”

Turning around Astrid saw Eret, her wingman on this shift, joining her in the kitchenette. Tall and burly, he looked more infantryman than airman, and Astrid kept wondering how he managed to squeeze into the confines of the cockpit.

“The only way you’d know that is if you’re here a lot too,” Astrid shot back, arms crossed and hip cocked to one side.

“Touché, but I’m not the one all prickly as a porcupine about it,” Eret gestured at all of her, looking way too smug.

She let her arms fall to her sides and was on the verge of saying something about showing him what prickly really looked like, but the microwave dinged and Astrid decided breakfast was more important at the moment.

“Your British accent sounds stupid with French words,” she ended up muttering lamely, and Eret laughed.

Eventually, Eret sat down opposite her at the table and Astrid knew he wouldn’t drop the subject, no matter how much small talk she injected into every lull in the conversation.

“So, how come you’ve been putting in so many hours?”

“I like flying,” she answered simply, stabbing around at what was left of her food with a fork. “What’s your reason?”

Eret scrutinized her briefly, then crossed his hands behind his head and kicked back, balancing his chair on its rear legs.

“I got laid off,” he said nonchalantly.

Astrid gaped. “Oh shit, for real? When did that happen?”

“A few weeks ago. Budget cuts, only so much government money to go around. I’m hoping to switch to full-time once a spot opens.”

Her face softened, and she chastised herself for failing to recognize signs of her friend’s troubles. “Well, the airlines are always looking for more pilots. You have the hours, and I could recommend you if you want to join us.”

At that Eret grinned. “And be a glorified bus driver like you? ‘Don’t bank more than 15 degrees or someone might spill their tea!’” he hollered, mimicking a drill instructor’s voice. “I like a tad more adventure and excitement in my life thanks.”

“What’s so adventurous about being a park ranger?” Astrid snorted. “Babysitting dumbass tourists, real exciting.”

A few more jabs at each other’s chosen professions and Eret was at it again.

“Seriously Astrid, what’s going on? I mean we all like flying, but you spend more of your life in the air than on the ground.”

Seeing Astrid’s raised eyebrow, he added, “Alright, maybe that’s exaggerating. Didn’t you stop flying international to spend more time with your family?”

Astrid idly picked at a fingernail. Eret was a good friend and meant well, but she was never one to voice her problems.

Look intimidating and suffer in silence, that was her strategy whenever someone asked. According to her mother, getting her to talk was like squeezing the last dregs of toothpaste out the tube.

“They’re the problem, my family,” she said ultimately, relenting to his persistence. “Every time I see them, they pester me about settling down. They even tried to set me up with some guy who lives on the same block. It’s just easier to tell them I’m too busy with work, and—”

The shrill shriek of a klaxon abruptly resounded through the room, cutting Astrid off and making both of them jump. In an instant, they were leaping out of their seats and running for the door.

It was the scramble alarm.

As she pulled on her flight suit and harness, Astrid shook off the early morning fatigue and the previous conversation, mentally running through the startup procedure to concentrate her mind on the mission.

Pushing the door wide, she sprinted out into the open toward the nearby hangar, boots pounding against the concrete, her eyes squinting to see in the sunlight. The familiar smell of kerosene jet fuel filled her nose with every breath of the crisp morning air.

Underneath the shelter her sleek F-15C air superiority fighter sat waiting, fully fueled and armed with its complement of heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles, as well as several hundred cannon rounds in case things got up close and personal.

Officially named Eagle, Astrid liked to call hers Stormfly; the bluish gray low-visibility paint reminded her of the storm clouds that once terrified her to fly through when she first got her wings.

Her crew chief and his men were already there, the cockpit canopy opened and ladder set up for her. She clambered in and busied herself with fitting her helmet and oxygen mask on properly while the ground crew continued preparing the jet, removing the engine intake covers and pulling arming pins from the missiles slung under the wings.

A few flicks of switches later the left engine chuffed and began emitting a high pitched whine that grew louder as it spooled up, followed quickly by the right one.

While they warmed up Astrid grabbed the control stick and moved it around through its range of motion, along with the rudder pedals and watched the ground crew confirm all the control surfaces were working.

The crew chief gave her a thumbs up and motioned that she was clear to taxi. As she rolled her fighter out of the hangar, the man gave her a sharp salute that she returned in kind. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eret’s plane start to move as well.

The 142nd shared runways with the airliners flying in and out of Portland International Airport, and the controllers halted other traffic while giving her directions to the runway and weather conditions. It was turning out to be a warm, bright day, no clouds and excellent visibility.

_“Blade Three One, Three Two. On departure turn left heading one niner zero, climb direct flight level two hundred. Wind three one zero at five. Cleared for takeoff, Runway Two Eight Left. Change to Departure.”_

“Cleared for takeoff Two Eight Left, Blade Three One copy.”

Astrid checked she was lined up with the runway, and then pushed the throttles all the way forward.

Behind her, the twin turbine engines emitted a deafening roar as they spun up to full power. The afterburners lit up as more fuel was pumped into the engines’ hot exhaust, creating shock diamonds in two long, fiery orange exhaust plumes.

The acceleration jerked Astrid’s head back and Stormfly tore down the runway, almost showing off to the bulky passenger jets lined up on the taxiways. In seconds she pulled on the stick, lifting them off the ground and into a sharp climb.

The green hills and forests ahead quickly vanished from sight as they rocketed up, and she banked the fighter into a sweeping left turn, peering down at the buildings of the city.

Astrid imagined that somewhere below, morning commuters would have looked up at the sound of jet engines to see a pair of fighters silhouetted against a beautiful cerulean blue sky. She let herself grin a little.

This felt good.

_“Blade Flight, contact Seattle Center on one three two decimal zero seven for further vectors. Bigfoot will brief you en route.”_

One day, she thought as she acknowledged and began fiddling with the radio, she would ask someone why the Western Air Defense Sector’s call sign was Bigfoot.

Maybe it was psychological, a hideous name to frighten off the enemy. Or maybe it was simply because they were based up in Washington.

Eret formed up with her as they climbed, keeping to her rear right and slightly lower. Within ten minutes of the scramble order, they were airborne and chasing after their target, whatever it was.

 _“Blade Flight, Bigfoot.”_ Right on cue.

_“Your intercept target is a NORDO commercial aircraft. Call sign Air China Niner Eight Five, Boeing Triple-Seven, tail number Bravo Two Zero Three One. Target is unresponsive. Intercept and visually inspect cabin and cockpit.”_

Astrid felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as WADS handed over to Seattle area control to give them directions for intercept.

All of a sudden this didn’t feel routine anymore. She used to fly the 777 herself; they had triple redundant radios plus two transponders. It was inconceivable that all of them could have failed.

She glanced at the airspeed tape on her display. They were doing Mach 1.2, faster than the speed of sound and probably rattling windows and waking up everybody living under their flight path with sonic booms.

Stormfly was fast; only supersonic missiles could outrun them. But the time it would take to catch the airliner still felt far too long, and drove home how vast the land and airspace they defended were.

Gazing out of the bubble canopy, Astrid couldn’t help but think to that day so many years ago, one that people all remembered as having started with a gorgeous blue sky over New York City.

* * *

_“Blade Three One, confirm tally on target.”_

“Standby.” According to radar they should be within visual range of their target, yet Astrid couldn’t see so much as a speck hanging in the sky.

On intercept missions like this Astrid really wished her fighter came with a long-range TV camera. She made do however with a high-power hunting rifle scope mounted next to the heads-up display. It was an improvised solution she picked up during a training exchange with the Hawaii Air National Guard, crude but functional.

They were approaching from the target’s rear and after some squinting she spotted her target of interest: the distinctive profile of an airliner, wings jutting out from below a round fuselage with two engines in nacelles hanging underneath, and a vertical fin sticking upwards.

“Three One, tally TOI1.”

Switching her radio to the civilian controller frequency, Astrid asked for clearance to maneuver freely for intercept, and for a ten nautical mile “bubble” around the target.

As they drew closer, she had Eret stay to the rear while she continued onward. She adjusted her grip on the control stick; if the Boeing made any aggressive motions, she’d have to pull away very quickly. A collision might be survivable for them, but was almost guaranteed to be disastrous for her.

Edging up to the considerably larger aircraft off its port wing, Astrid could make out the stylized red phoenix logo on the tail, and the black stenciled letters near the cockpit spelling “AIR CHINA”.

The clean white paintjob gleamed in the sunlight, and the plane resembled a great white bird riding on the air current.

“Three One, TOI1 intercepted.”

Too far away to see inside, Astrid edged her fighter closer, staying below the 777’s huge swept wing to obscure her presence from at least part of the cabin.

It was impossible to make out any details, though she could see movement and people in the seats. The next minute someone must have noticed her, as one by one they began pressing their faces against the acrylic windows, gawking at the fighter jet that came out of nowhere and was now flying alongside them.

A handful held up phones or cameras. One person waved. Everything seemed… normal?

She flew further forwards, eyes on the cockpit, and frowned at what she saw.

A person, a man perhaps, was sitting in the captain’s seat. Whoever it was definitely wasn’t wearing the familiar pilot uniform. Astrid dialed in the Guard frequency that pilots were supposed to monitor at all times on her radio.

“Air China Niner Eight Five, you have been intercepted. If you hear this transmission, acknowledge on one two one point five.”

She didn’t know what she expected to hear back, but it certainly wasn’t an irate, mildly nasally voice barking at her.

_“Oh for the love of—Are we really doing this again? I’m not a terrorist! I’m trying to land this plane here.”_

Astrid blinked. Before she could process the situation, Bigfoot called in.

_“Three One, mission update. TOI1 is an emergency aircraft, maintain escort and contact Oakland on one one niner point eight.”_

Thoroughly perplexed, Astrid complied and radioed the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center in charge of the high altitude airspace above northern California.

“Oakland Center, Blade Three One and Three Two, active air scramble intercepting Air China Nine Eighty-Five. Maintaining three nine thousand, heading one seven five.”

_“Blade Three One, Oakland Center roger. Nine Eighty-Five has declared Mayday, Air China ops has verified the situation with cabin crew onboard. The pilots are incapacitated, a passenger is at the controls. We’re trying to round up some help for him right now.”_

Astrid stared at her radio console, as if a malfunction was responsible for the absurdity she had just heard. Or did she enter some commercial radio station’s frequency by mistake, and they happened to be airing an air travel-themed radio play?

Completely bewildered, she heard Eret asking the controller to repeat the message. Likely sensing their disbelief, the controller elaborated. 

The plane was headed for San Francisco. Apparently not long after entering US airspace some sort of fume incident knocked out the entire flight crew, and currently at the front was an amateur pilot in way over his head.

The airline’s operations center had managed to reach the cabin crew who confirmed the situation, and also verified them against their manifest.

Astrid leaned her head back, trying to take in the new information. Unbelievable as it was, rare and bizarre things did tend to happen when flying. That being said, this was the most outlandish one yet. 

In her peripheral vision, the great white plane continued steadily on its course.

She could help.

It wasn’t her job and probably wasn’t protocol, but she was here already and in the best possible position to assist. The flight deck layout and fundamentals of how to fly the 777-300ER still came to mind easily, while checklists onboard would cover precise procedures that didn’t.

Keeping people safe, protecting them, that was her duty.

Thinking fast, Astrid reached out to the controller and explained her proposal: if they let the autopilot continue flying the plane to its preprogrammed destination, she could escort him there and help set the plane up for an autoland at San Francisco International.

The plane would more or less land itself, making it the safest bet that required minimal actual “flying” from the passenger-turned-pilot.

Within minutes, she was patched in on the radio frequency cleared out for the Air China flight and the ground controller looking after him. Plus a bunch of intelligence types listening in, she guessed.

“Nine Eight Five, I hear you need a hand. What’s your name?”

_“So now you believe me.”_

Still nasally, still irate. Astrid supposed she couldn’t blame him, he must’ve had to repeat the same thing dozens of times. 

_“Just call me Hiccup.”_

And she thought things couldn’t get any stranger. “Your name’s Hiccup?”

_“It’s actually Holden Haddock III, if you need to report that or something. In fact, I was born on February 29; I majored in mechanical engineering; my dad’s Stanton Haddock, the Washington businessman who ran for governor a few years ago; I live in an oversized country house he calls ‘Berk,’ and I have conversations with my cat. Do you want my Social Security number too?”_

Eyes narrowed and the corner of her mouth twitching, Astrid bit down a retort that she really didn’t want recorded on air traffic control tapes.

Digging deep for the patience forcibly acquired from working in retail during school, she calmly asked, “So why Hiccup then?”

She needed him to be in a cooperative mood, at the very least.

_“Because I’d rather be known as a muscle reflex than a car or a fish.”_

“A car?”

 _“It’s an Australian thing,”_ he grumbled, sounding like he regretted the previous quip. _“Listen, I’m sorry, bad jokes and sarcasm are how I deal with stress. My friends all call me that, Hiccup.”_

Astrid figured the way he pronounced the “p” with a pop had to be intentional.

_“Do I get to know your name too? Since I’ve basically told you my life story and all.”_

She was about to automatically refuse, but paused. Humor to handle stress, huh? “Fair enough, you can have my call sign, Frozen.”

He made a quick noise that could’ve been either a laugh or a grunt. _“Frozen. Because you look like Elsa, or because you’re an ice queen?”_

“Because I got drunk and started singing _Let It Go_ really freaking loudly in a bar,” Astrid explained flatly.

There was no immediate reply. Then Hiccup’s voice returned, chuckling, _“Can I ask to hear that? As a last request sort of thing, just in case.”_

“Get that plane on the ground and I’ll sing it for you at a karaoke,” she answered, relieved she had gotten him to laugh, before turning serious. “Now pay attention, you’re about to get a crash course on flying with automation.”

An instant later, she realized that was probably an exceptionally poor choice of words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else really like the idea of Astrid as a badass fighter pilot? There needs to be more fics with that character setting.


End file.
